>It is not fair for Americans to be held responsible for the US
>power elite's actions overseas, especially considering that most of
>them aren't even aware of what's going on.
Hmm, I'm not so sure. We do vote for the fuckers, and only turn on their foreign policy actions when they sour. There was a lot of cheering for the invasion of Iraq until Iraqis started fighting back. I think a lot of that "unawareness" is a studied ignorance - a shading of the eyes and a cupping of the ears. As the guy says in Occupation: Dreamland (a terrific movie, by the way <http://occupationdreamland.com>), Americans want their steak but they don't want to see how it's butchered.
Doug
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I think, you're both correct. People are always subjected to the dominant ideas of the time, which are, "ever the ideas of the ruling class." The majority doesn't rule, it selects the candidates which are presented to them by their rulers. This is part and parcel of the general alienation from power by the producers in a bourgeois democracy.
On the other hand, in a sense, most people militantly bury themselves in ignorance...they simply don't WANT to see their emporers naked--it's unpatriotic. They won't listen to critics of their times...until events begin to shake them and they find it impossible to avert their eyes any longer. That's happening now vis a vis the adventure in Iraq.
I was at a meeting today at the local rec centre where the two reps at the state and federal level (both Labor Party) were discussing with and listening to locals about their concerns. During the course of the session, the Federal MP, said that he almost lost his seat because of a massive $300,000 injection of money given to the Liberal Party member's campaign in the last election. The right almost always has more financial support than the left...again, the ruling ideas with a lot of material backing. The Labor Party guy didn't have any way near that amount to spend. While Labor tries to be "business friendly", most business people don't financially support Labor.
And then, a local resident, a Chinese immigrant who described himself as feeling very happy and fortunate to have become a citizen of Oz, stood up and said his piece about how these foreign wars which Australia was getting involved in (Iraq, Afghanistan and so on) were wrong headed and bound to fail. His call to bring the troops home and spend the money at home on things like healthcare and education was met with the only applause to occur during the meeting. The two politicians hemmed and hawed a bit and tried to deflect the sharpness of the resident's criticism with stories about how the UN didn't vote for the invasion and the need to maintain troops in Iraq now, because Australia was there and that Afghanistan actually needed more troops. But my impression was that the attempt redirect the local's sentiment into safer political waters was not very successful at the gathering. Perhaps history is starting to be moved : perhaps, we're beginning to wake from this dream.
Best, Mike B)
Read "Penguins in Bondage": http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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